GENIUS FORUMS

That post Bob was the equivalent of a meek fart through a wet bathing suit...

Alexis Jacobi wrote:That post Bob was the equivalent of a meek fart through a wet bathing suit...

Remember, Alexis, it's the meek farts that shall inheret the earth.

;-)

Franz Kafka wrote:Another said: I bet that is also a parable.

The first said: You have won.

The second said: But unfortunately only in parable.

The first said: No, in reality: in parable you have lost.

Not sure who to side with here. Bob with his head in the clouds, or Alex with his head in the sand ....

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David Quinn wrote:Not sure who to side with here. Bob with his head in the clouds, or Alex with his head in the sand .... -

My head may indeed be in the clouds, David, but rest assured that my feet are firmly planted on the ground. Which is a point I really question regarding yourself and a whole lot of other so-called men of wisdom.

David Quinn wrote:Not sure who to side with here. Bob with his head in the clouds, or Alex with his head in the sand ....

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Hmmm, I'm waiting for Bob to do his book tour, perhaps he'll come (take a detour) to North Dakota and I can get his autograph. Maybe even a photo-op, nawww.

Geez, top two threads simultaneously at Genius. Who wouldda thunk that possible. The Infinite works in mysterious ways.

Come gather round little ones and I'll tell ye a tale...

A MAN SET OUT WALKING on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. In the clear air everything stood out distinct and the sunlight shone bright on the green leaves and the reddish rocks. The whole creation seemed to sing and the man, in his way, resonated with that singing. He walked on, he wandered really (because he was freedom incarnate), and his thoughts went in whatever direction he wished them to go. Free. Soaring. Ever-new. Original. But somewhere along the way he was accosted by spirits in the form of men, or rather they came up along side him and became proximate to him. Something in them produced change in the man and it seemed like the sunlight dimmed, that what so moved and delighted and inspired and refreshed him about the light of that glorious day, he now seemed to see through dimmed eyes, or as if a gauze had been placed between himself and the world, the whole universe, the kosmos. And these two strangers walked on each side of him and the three descended, because that Jericho road goes down, and so far down it leads to a hollow in the very earth itself; a peculiar and uncommon configuration.

NOW OUR MAN didn't know what to think. He was overpowered but in a subtle way---energetically you might say. Like being held between two magnets the energy of these strange spirits wore away at him, or demagnetized him from his original polarity, and the longer he was with them the more he became like them: everything was the same in fact but his vision dimmed, he lost his connection to his own emotional core, and anyway his rather obscure companions had the habit, or the trick, of repeating everything they said in a dull monotone, a chant in a slightly minor key, or with tones of discord that ground away at the man's rather pure consciousness, his pure being.

IN THE COURSE OF TIME, but who can say how it happened? he more or less became like his two unwelcome companions. And at a certain point they all sat down along side the road in a ditch and they just stared straight ahead, as if deadened, as if in a trance like death. But they were anything but dead. They were all somehow like stones. Now the light was the same light, the green of the foliage was the same too and something like fire burned in these achingly green growth tips of the leaves, because it was spring. The water poured out of springs and flowed over the reddish rocks. And the supreme energy of life was just as rich and just as alive as it ever was, but these men, now, were no longer alive with it. They sat together and droned their obscure 'truths' together, but it was a sickening and dank mechanical poetry more like the grating of abrasive wheels, and yet it was 'truth' for them.

NOW, AS YOU HAVE OF COURSE ANTICIPATED a man from Samarita happened by. Was he going up the road or down the road, or was he traveling another path that simply intersected these dreary fellows? Well, that is anyone's guess. But he happened by. And listening to their dreary intonations he knew they were 'dead' and had become like stones, but he knew too they were all under a spell, but spells can always be broken, can't they? He sat a safe distance away, cognizant that their energy was contagious and he observed them. "How can you inspire a stone?" he asked himself. And he thought about the word 'inspire', the sense of breathing life into a dead thing, spirit entering 'dead' matter. Well, he recognized the dark spirits that flanked the man in the center, and naturally they immediately recognized him and made it clear with their eyes and with their mockingly upraised lips, that they would never relinquish this man who'd been walking on the road from Jerusalem to Jericho. The tentacles of their energy reached way inside of him and cut him off from living currents, from life itself if you must know. He now lived in a facsimile of 'life' that was nothing more than a false-life supplied by his imprisonment. And with them he constructed and maintained his freedomlessness and fought with his captors against any attempt to free him.

NOW AS FATE WOULD HAVE IT and as often happens in 'Biblical' stories, another element introduced itself. You know as well as I that this situation was a complete standoff, and you know too that no matter what our Good Samaritan pulled out of his bag of tricks it just wouldn't matter: the man in the middle was a lost cause, and 'the dead should be left to bury the dead' and---how does it go?---'live and let die' is more often than not the motto. But Lo! from out of the Judean Hills there appeared a singing donkey! Oh, he was an handsome ass he was! Yes! He came down the trail to the right of this dismal trio of dead stone-like men and immediately caught the sense of what was going on. (In fact, the scene was reminicent of a parable he'd once lived through.)

HE CAME ROUND THE SIDE and stood in front of the devilish interlopers and made funny gestures with his mouth. He pulled back his gums and showed his huge teeth. He told animal jokes. Then scatological jokes with poop sounds. He burped for a straight minute. He got an erection and mounted a stump and pretended to fuck it. He tied a pretty ribbon in his mane and danced a pas de deux wearing a tutu, all to no avail. Mercillesly stone faced and with maliciousness in their eyes, those energetic leeches clung all the more strongly to their 'host'. They were NOT going to give in!

THEN OUR BELOVED ASININE HERO sang a song trying to get past the pillars of these two deadening men on each side, one line of which was:

• What pure feeling has done,
  mere knowledge never did.
  nor the clearest discrimination
  nor the widest sense of knowing.
  It all changed
  when pure feelings came down upon me
  and dissipated burning anger
  and the desire to harm.
  and only love's mystery
  has made me harmless again.

THE VERY CREATION ITSELF seemed to brighten. Little birdies came down and rubbed themselves up against the man. Bambi also came down and licked the man's ear. The 7 dwarfs came down the road on a bicycle built for 7 dwarfs and rang the bike's bell in tune. The sky opened and then deep blue space itself and a strange rain of little 'alephs' decended on everyone, and got under their skin. From the internal organs of the Creation a Voice was discerned that said "This is My Beloved Ass in Who I am Well Pleased!" But the dark creatures on each side wouldn't give up and they held all the more tightly to their victim with an octopus grip.

"FUCK THIS SHIT" SAID our heroic beast of burden who was not and is not known for patience, and he turned around and with his vastly strong hind legs gave each of these ridiculous imitation men a dreadful kick right in the face. POW! Broken teeth chinked on the stones, and splatters of blood came down like bajareque, there was a tittering among the birds in the trees, but then a sigh of relief as if to say "Well, I guess it had to be so". And those parasitical zombies, with their heads split open, vanished back into the vapors from which they had congealed, and our Voyager awoke from his dream of death as if from a dream of death, and recognized the world all over again.

"GET ON BOARD" said the Ass of Wisdom®, and together they both steered a course over the the local tavern to enjoy a much desired glass of ale.

Tomas wrote: Hmmm, I'm waiting for Bob to do his book tour, perhaps he'll come (take a detour) to North Dakota and I can get his autograph. Maybe even a photo-op, nawww.

Geez, top two threads simultaneously at Genius. Who wouldda thunk that possible. The Infinite works in mysterious ways.

I'm afraid you'll be waiting a long time, Tomas. As I seek not the praise and adoration of the herd. Nor a free and easy ride through life on its behalf. But rather the full and unlimited resurrection of some of the relatively few finely-formed and highly-sensitive souls that are painfully entrenched in it.

Alexis Jacobi wrote:When you speak, I too can hear your jaw snapping together you devilish trickster.

I prefer djinn, thank you.

I would argue that Christianity, despite almost insuperable defects, remains 'relevant' because it has, however attenuated, a 'living link' to the energy of the values of the prophets.

Perhaps it remained relevant (or just not faded away) because it was able to, internally and painfully, reform, which was also the main drive of those prophets you mentioned without exception. Then again, the thing you might interpret as being "relevant" in one age might be a completely different beast than the century before. As usual, we tend to see unity and entity where there's only a cascade of echoes....eegoos.

the man in the ditch with his physical wounds is our own self, our selves, and every single aspect of our malaise---from the basic physical wound or cut in the flesh up to the most refined 'spiritual illness'---is in essence a wound in the flesh of the body, and there is no turning away from it, no staring coldly at it, no hyper-intellectualization of it, no abstracting of it.

You're just repeating here what I said earlier since your mind is too troubled to see your own lack of clarity in digesting even the basic elements of my point. The larger point and question for you is to wonder why a Samaritan managed to address the wounded in a meaningful, direct way but all the religious and theological sentiments, which included an instruction by law and the tradition to help people in need, somehow managed to ignore the whole thing. The Samaritans, ironically, were claiming to be the "true religion" and the true inhabitants of the Land while the Judeans thought of them as immigrants, as a “foolish people” , possible also "twisted and tendentious" like some Israeli regard the Palestinians today. This is why the story works so good on so many levels but most of all it makes minced meat of the religious, contemporary concepts of charity. Modern Christian thought on this is much closer to Judean and Pharisean ideas from the first century CE than it is reflecting anything Jesus said or did:

• "For you always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me".

• Jesus replied, “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” He said to another man, “Follow me.” But he replied, “Lord, first let me go and bury my father.” Jesus said to him, “Let the dead bury their own dead, but you go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Still another said, “I will follow you, Lord; but first let me go back and say goodbye to my family.” Jesus replied, “No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for service in the kingdom of God.”

Diebert Van Djinn wrote:I prefer djinn, thank you.

Your slightest wish is my command.

What is relevant, in Prophetic values, remains constant in energy (if you will) from age to age. There are probably many ways to describe it. I prefer to see it as a focus on the human being, a privelaging of the personal.

The rest of what you wrote, lamentably, is not worth commenting on. Pura paja.

• En Latinoamérica especialmente en Venezuela y Costa Rica es de uso frecuente la expresión "Hablador de Paja" para referirse a la persona que dice muchas mentiras o que habla de temas sin importancia (trivialidades). "No hables más paja" se dice a quien en una conversación no aporta con sus palabras nada que sea de provecho.

Bob Michael wrote:

Tomas wrote: Hmmm, I'm waiting for Bob to do his book tour, perhaps he'll come (take a detour) to North Dakota and I can get his autograph. Maybe even a photo-op, nawww.

Geez, top two threads simultaneously at Genius. Who wouldda thunk that possible. The Infinite works in mysterious ways.

I'm afraid you'll be waiting a long time, Tomas. As I seek not the praise and adoration of the herd. Nor a free and easy ride through life on its behalf. But rather the full and unlimited resurrection of some of the relatively few finely-formed and highly-sensitive souls that are painfully entrenched in it.

GodsDaughter says: Bob Michael, I didn't realize you are an Author, what is your book about? If it is about Christ, I'll buy it!

GodsDaughter says: Every Thursday I take the initiative to interview new Authors at Hooked-on-Books at their awesome signings. I love the experience of mingling with the Authors, I question them and then write an article about them. They all love me and I'm keeping track of some of them to continue marketing them. If I buy your book Bob, I will also write a review on your book.

Alex,

Still, for you and for me and for all of us: we are utterly driven to engage in interpretation, to attempt to divine meaning, and to become the messengers of those divined meanings, the Heralds. And certainly among the present group. It is almost ridiculously evident.

That would be you.

The false sense of 'I' you are attached to exists inside the hermeneutic circle of interpretation.
Take a look outside, the buildings, streetscapes, clothes, food etc are interpreted.
The society you exist in is interpreted.
A better word is World.
You are locked up in a World.
There are many Worlds and many sub-Worlds.
Each is an interpretation.

Each World consists of Roles, practices, projects, equipment, ethical standards.
The Xians have priests, nuns, methods to get to heaven, canonisation of saints, rosary beads, parables, commandments etc...
Surely you can see it's laughable, demented, meaningless.

The World of Judaism, the World of Xianity, the World of Japanese, the World of Maori.
All are interpretation, are subject to change, appear and disappear.

None of them are infinite.
Each is a Waltz with illusion.
None of them has in any way the least degree of significance at all.

If you were attuned to the GF project you would look well past all that rubbish and look directly and only at what is permanent and unchanging.

It is so clear and obvious.

Alexis Jacobi wrote:What is relevant, in Prophetic values ... focus on the human being, a privelaging of the personal.

Indeed, the ethics abundant in the Prophets take often the shape of the call to defend the weak and oppressed (orphans and widows), which counted as well for a personified Israel being oppressed and run over by powerful, successful and thriving heathen empires, as well as a call for elevation of the downtrodden themselves: the concept of pity was born and nurtured, identification with bottom of the barrel. Sadly enough this highly sentimental move has its own dangerous dynamics: the sentiments becoming cover for an twisted double standard: the "extraordinary lie".

But yeah, the personal angle you so love, this wonderful World of the personal, intricate, subtle: it never ceases to amaze. The complexities and maze-like structures each and every person represents, how each and every gesture seems to emerge out of a personal context, how wonderfully crooked and unique each and every tear drop from God's very own eyes rolls down the hill of life, "every teardrop a waterfall".

And yet there are those who grow weary of it, not of life but of all the "privileging of the personal", whose only desire is to go beyond this created World, to find what is not locatable and reside there, knowing he has found life and his past and future was merely womb and womb-dream which ceases to "inform" the one thing which cannot be informed anyway: the formless yet all-present.

The rest of what you wrote, lamentably, is not worth commenting on. Pura paja.

"I think you got that completely wrong, you're deliberately side-stepping the issues. It's actually a form of bad-faith."

My Favorite Djinni wrote:Indeed, the ethics abundant in the Prophets take often the shape of the call to defend the weak and oppressed (orphans and widows), which counted as well for a personified Israel being oppressed and run over by powerful, successful and thriving heathen empires, as well as a call for elevation of the downtrodden themselves: the concept of pity was born and nurtured, identification with bottom of the barrel. Sadly enough this highly sentimental move has its own dangerous dynamics: the sentiments becoming cover for an twisted double standard: the "extraordinary lie".

(Soundtrack)
I have the sense that you, and perhaps especially you, are just as subject as many of the illustrious GF denizens who are attracted to the flame of Absolutism. It is I think a most attractive if addictive and destructive drug. David lives off of it, so do Jupi and for the love of Heaven give ear to Loyal Dennis, commisioned lieutenant for the installation of Absolutism in the brain! Not at all to say that the Nietzschean analysis you vomit-up on-demand (as it were) is not relevant or considerable, or some part of what is necessary to understand our 'age' and ourselves...but I think this style of thinking, and more and more I see you as being a Ringleader here of that style, can be modified by so many different considerations, so many different views and considerations. Essentially, it becomes something very different when---to push the metaphor---you have subjected yourself to those Nietzschean poisons, have let them pump through your veins, and somehow 'dealt with it' and come out the other end. I wonder sometimes if in your case it has somehow just hollowed you out as a PERSON so that you just don't know how to consider 'the person', and so in this sense have become somehow 'dead', which is to say that one 'can't get through to you'.

And yet there are those who grow weary of it, not of life but of all the "privileging of the personal", whose only desire is to go beyond this created World, to find what is not locatable and reside there, knowing he has found life and his past and future was merely womb and womb-dream which ceases to "inform" the one thing which cannot be informed anyway: the formless yet all-present.

This declaration, though a little more refined, is remarkably similar to that of Dennis, above. Again, it seems a very addictive drug, and like a drug it may temporarily solve problems, or dull them over, but one always has to come back to 'reality', which seems to be the 'World' you (and he) wish to side-step and escape. But it is not that your oddly romantic 'longing' (a little female really) is not intelligible, or useful or necessary as a perspective, or perhaps a momentary refuge, but still it is my own view that what really makes us 'men' is a willingness to remain engaged. There is a horridly despicable down-side to the Christian 'mood' and it is (obviously) a quite terrible drug in itself, but at a higher level it has tremendous merit. But, cutting to the chase (again), I take issue not with any possible consideration or stance toward life and living (such as you express above) but with this noted strain of Absolutism that operates in many who write here, and the principal ringleaders: David of course, and you too (though you are 'prettier'). Of course the only purpose even in making such a statement or taking time to write against this position is only to clarify my own position: the tremendous, inadvertant gift of GF to me.

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:The problems of life cannot be solved by the automatic application of universally-valid norms. We cannot say that under the same conditions one must act in one certain way, everywhere and always. This cannot be said, first of all, because conditions are never exactly the same. We might state the maxim conversely: man must act individually and solve the moral problems of life individually, must manifest his creativity in the moral acts of his life....

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:Man's highest consciousness of himself is not explicable by the world of nature and remains a mystery to that world. ... Man is not only of this world but of another world; not only of necessity, but of freedom; not only out of nature, but from God....

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:Man's fate is a mystery, not to be unraveled within the small section of eternal life which we call man's earthly, empirical life. The destiny of every man is immersed in eternity, and in eternity the deciphering of its meaning is to be sought. Within the limits of our brief life, everything appears accidental, meaningless and unjust. But everything takes on meaning and finds justification in eternity.

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:Once a man has recognized that he is a free and creative spirit, by this very fact he makes the solution of life's tragic conflicts dependent on his freedom and his creativity, and not on the abstract acceptance of a uniform universally-valid law.

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:The image of human personality is not only a human image, it is also the image of God. In that fact lie hidden all the enigmas and mysteries of man. It is the mystery of divine-humanity, which is the paradox that cannot be expressed in rational terms.

The above-quoted point in the direction of transformations and elevations of consciousness that do not pander to the bottom of the barrel, and express the higher dimensions of a Christian-derived spirituality brought fully into modernity and not slavishly bowing down before a juvenile Weiningerism or an entrenched neo-Nietzscheanism. Or this new and a little deranged 'Infinitism'. ;-)

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:The spiritual liberation of man is the realization of personality in man. It is the attainment of wholeness. And at the same time it is unwearied conflict.

Diebert van Rhijn wrote:And yet there are those who grow weary of it [the personal angle --Laird], not of life but of all the "privileging of the personal", whose only desire is to go beyond this created World, to find what is not locatable and reside there, knowing he has found life and his past and future was merely womb and womb-dream which ceases to "inform" the one thing which cannot be informed anyway: the formless yet all-present.

Lofty sounding words, Diebert, but any attempt to get to some root meaning of value to Life in them is doomed to failure. They simply dissolve into ... emptiness. What exactly is this "beyond" of which you speak; this "unlocatable" "formless yet all-present" in which one can "reside", "knowing" that one has "found life" there? In fact it is quite the opposite of finding life: one does not "find life" there; one instead abandons it. One commits oneself to a fanciful notion of oneself - to the extent that one even admits of oneself - as an impervious wholly rational machine, immune to both suffering and joy, whose sole purpose is to lead others towards this same chimerical ideal.

It is actually an ultimate aloofness from; an ultimate de-contextualisation from life. And yet... life remains. One continues to make decisions - some grand, some mundane - which affect both oneself and other feeling, sensitive, concerned human beings, and in these decisions and the context in which ones makes them, "the personal" is "located". It is in this sense of "the personal" that the value of a philosophy shows itself. By their fruits are they known. The fruits of "the formless" are plain to see: pseudo-intellectualism, hubris and an over-arching sense of superiority over the common man - all completely ungrounded in reality. Those things that the house philosophy does get right; those aspects of it that can be seen as valid perspectives - are trivial, a point driven home in what might easily be seen as self-satire in the preposterous emphasis of the axiom of identity as some kind of all-pervading profundity; those in which it is misguided are actively harmful to meaningful spirituality.

In a way, the preaching of Jesus was impersonal too: his message was to love each and all irrelevant of (personal) deservedness, but in another way it was very personal in the sense of having vast (and positive) implications for the way in which a man is to live his life. QRStianity denies the very existence of the man who can be affected by an honest reading of Gospels - a reading based on unremitting love and service to God and one's neighbour (rather than a reading of [QRS] "enlightenment"). The effect of "the personal" in QRStianity is to hold oneself disinterested from Life except to the extent that one can cajole others into joining this self-congratulatory club of disinterest, in which one can make the absurd claim that offering a starving man "wisdom" is preferable to offering him food. "Poison" describes this quite well. The effect of "the personal" in Christianity is to foster a world of en-light-enment the sense of the "light" of love, in which the divine is made flesh and humanity's true compassion - not that in which some false "wisdom" is misrepresented to the unsuspecting - is made manifest. I know which I'd rather be guided by.

Alexis Jacobi wrote: It is I think a most attractive if addictive and destructive drug. David lives off of it, so do Jupi and for the love of Heaven give ear to Loyal Dennis, commisioned lieutenant for the installation of Absolutism in the brain!

If you are proposing to quit all drugs and intoxication, we're in agreement. Was there ever any other topic here?

Then again: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

I wonder sometimes if in your case it has somehow just hollowed you out as a PERSON so that you just don't know how to consider 'the person', and so in this sense have become somehow 'dead', which is to say that one 'can't get through to you'.

I'm indeed very open about the hollowness of the person but it's beyond the scope of this forum to speculate how personable I might be. It's not about becoming some kind of ghostly non-person since the personality is also just caused like everything else. Seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.

Again, it seems a very addictive drug, and like a drug it may temporarily solve problems, or dull them over, but one always has to come back to 'reality', which seems to be the 'World' you (and he) wish to side-step and escape. But it is not that your oddly romantic 'longing' (a little female really) is not intelligible, or useful or necessary as a perspective, or perhaps a momentary refuge

Desire for reach is always masculine energy, dear Alexis, no matter the object. And how much more out there than the "ultimate" one could reach?

For people whose life is tied up and fully identified to the personal, the world and its business cannot be escaped and it surely will seem like temporary fleeing or denying life each time anyone would suggest such act. And not to forget many people do attempt to escape life altogether because they cannot distinguish falsehood from truth in terms of their person and imagined birth, life and death.

guest_of_logic wrote: any attempt to get to some root meaning of value to Life in them is doomed to failure. They simply dissolve into ... emptiness.

But what if that statement only works for you because of your belief Life to be such and such and Emptiness nah and nah?

as an impervious wholly rational machine, immune to both suffering and joy, whose sole purpose is to lead others towards this same chimerical ideal.

You sound so scared of giant killer robots from space, our new peace bringing overlords to be! To me you appear like the one who sounds robotic, uninspired and dull in your posts. Nothing personal though :-)

pseudo-intellectualism, hubris and an over-arching sense of superiority over the common man - all completely ungrounded in reality .... trivial, a point driven home in what might easily be seen as self-satire in the preposterous emphasis of the axiom of identity as some kind of all-pervading profundity; those in which it is misguided are actively harmful to meaningful spirituality.

Now don't be so mean to Alexis, will you! Is it true they banned him at the friendly good-natured KIR?

Sorry Laird for not being able to answer more seriously or in depth. God knows I love to do so at times with any intelligent challenger. But you don't show any sign you know, even in just some starter, intellectual sense, where you're talking about in this instance. That's to me like real hubris but in a way that's also the redeeming factor, this tenacity in coming back and outlining your objections. You're just holding back too much for it to burn up and let the poison do its work.

Diebert wrote:If you are proposing to quit all drugs and intoxication, we're in agreement. Was there ever any other topic here?

Then again: "The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field. When a man found it, he hid it again, and then in his joy went and sold all he had and bought that field."

Well, the topic was Krishna declaring what are the attributes of a 'divinely inclined person', and if that is a reference point, and 'Krishna' is some part of the ineffable God that the Hindus say we are part-and-parcel of, and if realization of that 'divine person' (which CAN also be defined abstractly, i.e. non-personalistically), is the goal, and all manner of different pleasures and activities and neurosis what is keeping us from 'it', what exactly is that 'it'?

I'm indeed very open about the hollowness of the person but it's beyond the scope of this forum to speculate how personable I might be.

It's not really.

But let's try this: How would you paraphrase or rephrase your grasp of what I propose with 'personalism'? What does it look like from your angle?

For people whose life is tied up and fully identified to the personal, the world and its business cannot be escaped and it surely will seem like temporary fleeing or denying life each time anyone would suggest such act. And not to forget many people do attempt to escape life altogether because they cannot distinguish falsehood from truth in terms of their person and imagined birth, life and death.

I don't think the issue is 'being tied up with'. It is more like a base orientation and though it might be 'personalism' and 'personalistic' (as with some of the Russian novelists and for example with Berdyaev) I don't believe it means being subjugated to human folly, the folly of persons. It can, I imagine, be also quite ruthless toward the imperfections of persons. And it is possible that this 'personalism', defined as toward the higher common denominator, may achieve more for humans than any other approach.

Whereas, the abstractions of GF (pretty broadly this is what they promote, and I do not fein to understand it) seems to call for a radical cut.

Deaf to non-duality!!

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GodsDaughter wrote:GodsDaughter says: Bob Michael, I didn't realize you are an Author, what is your book about? If it is about Christ, I'll buy it!

I'm not an author nor have I written any books, G/D. Though I've considered writing one which would be an autobiography perhaps entitled 'My Journey Back to Sainthood'. Or in the context of Christ, I might call it 'My Return to the Living Christ Spirit Within'. But books are not the answer to the ongoing human dilemma. And Christ and Christianity (his teachings) are also dead and done for so far as them being of any value in bringing the light of love, truth, and understanding into our cold, callous, dark and decaying human world. So something greater and more perfect is needed and is on its way. After all Christ clearly admitted he had shortcomings and lacked perfection:

"Why call thou me good? None is good, save one, that is God."

"He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto my Father."

Alex wrote:Well, the topic was Krishna declaring what are the attributes of a 'divinely inclined person', and if that is a reference point, and 'Krishna' is some part of the ineffable God that the Hindus say we are part-and-parcel of, and if realization of that 'divine person' (which CAN also be defined abstractly, i.e. non-personalistically), is the goal, and all manner of different pleasures and activities and neurosis what is keeping us from 'it', what exactly is that 'it'?

I'll reply to this; otherwise I'd waste a whole post on a question.

By itself, the quotation only points to the effect: asceticism. Luckily, I have the Bhagavad-Gita with me. Chapter 16 contrasts the "divine" man with the "demonic". The demonic man lacks clarity, doesn't believe in truth or morality, and in ignorance is controlled by desire, anger, and greed. So, there is an elevated, divine, path, and the road through hell. Either one escapes the cycle of rebirth, or one is imprisoned within it ("deluded in birth after birth").

To answer your question specifically, the goal of divinity is perfection. Such perfection is associated with freedom and happiness.

Anyway, I have a question about Berdyaev.

Nikolai Berdyaev wrote:The problems of life cannot be solved by the automatic application of universally-valid norms. We cannot say that under the same conditions one must act in one certain way, everywhere and always. This cannot be said, first of all, because conditions are never exactly the same.

Is there a second reason for rejecting universal morality? Or does Berdyaev only disagree with Kant in practise, but not in theory? I'm asking this because, if that's his only reason, he sounds like an absolutist who simply can't find the absolute.

David is right, but 'deaf' is not the exact word. If you are going to employ that term---non-dual---you are going to have to allow for the levels of conversation, the viewpoints and the metaphysics, that inform those who use that term. But the problem with you, David, is that you think you can abstract ideas from their context. For example, you can toss out all the quotes of Jesus that you want, and you can glorify Kierkegaard after you have completely abstracted him from his context, but you have literally a zero comprehension of Christianity, and a zero comprehension of its context (even if a 'deliberate misreading'), Judaism. And you make this very plain. Similarly, with 'non-dualism', I'm betting that you will completely remove it from the context of the metaphysic and view-structure that it arises in, which is wide and really pretty complex. To even start to step into that 'land' you'd have to start deciphering Sanskrit terms, and placing oneself, to the degree that is possible, within that language-structure. All of that is irrelevant (to you). And your fanaticism allows you to do...well...whatever you want. But in Hindu thought there are infinite shades to this dialectic between 'dual and non-dual'. There is 'qualified dualism' and 'qualified non-dualism' and many other shades, and even the most accomplished visionaries of that system do not take an absolute posture. And there is NO mystic, visionary, religious man, seer, reformer or fakir who takes even the remotest semblance of your positions in regard to women, relatedness, the social structure, and creative work in the world (from a religious stance).

You are truly a maveric.

Trevor wrote:By itself, the quotation only points to the effect: asceticism. Luckily, I have the Bhagavad-Gita with me. Chapter 16 contrasts the "divine" man with the "demonic". The demonic man lacks clarity, doesn't believe in truth or morality, and in ignorance is controlled by desire, anger, and greed. So, there is an elevated, divine, path, and the road through hell. Either one escapes the cycle of rebirth, or one is imprisoned within it ("deluded in birth after birth").

To answer your question specifically, the goal of divinity is perfection. Such perfection is associated with freedom and happiness.

The chapter dealing with the demonic and the divine natures is based on a conception of the 'world' (loka, sphere) in which we have our being. In that conceptual order, this form of matter is 'Krishna's exterior energy', and what that means is that it is a marginal realm, i.e. marginal in relation to the supreme being (God in his ultimately personalist aspect: extreme personalism, God as a divine person out of which all existence arises). It is a very bizarre and yet also very well developed system of belief---it pales all metaphysical and cosmological systems (of a religious sort) ever dreamed up in the West. Perhaps only Kabalalistic notions could come close to it, and I have suspected that Kabalah is derived from the East anyway but who knows). The basic notion within Vaishnavism (Krishna as an incarnation of Vishnu) is that it is 'service of Vishnu' that is the beginning (and end) of 'liberation'. But 'service to Vishnu' is extremely wide in possibility, and also in Hindu thinking there are many different 'stations' of huamn life, and so the idea of dharma means: duty to fulfill the obligations (and that means essentially religious obligations) of one's station and locale in life, on a grand continuum of life. Everything flows out of divine being and everything flows back into divine being, except that there is a twist: for we who 'take place' in the supreme being's 'exterior energy', we are confronted with a grave danger: we either perform the dharma that is necessary to steer our ship toward the divine shores---to Krishna Loka---or we 'forget' ourselves and descend into the 'material entanglement'. We have the odd habit of wishing to feel satisfied within this earth-loka but in this philsophy that is considered nescience. It is possible, with one wrong turn taken, to entangle one's karma in such a way that, like in quicksand, one gets more and more mired within one's existence (in this 'exterior energy'). The goal of a devotee of Vishnu is to reestablsih a personal relationship with the Godhead, the divine energy or frequency of God, and like with solar sails (forgive the metaphor) steer a course back toward the source of our origin.

Social duty, matrimonial duty, duty of service to mankind, the performance of religious sacrifices---in short the whole conceptual system of life is geared toward the divine ideal. As far as I know, there is nothing quite like it in the West. It is an archaic, completely metaphysical and utterly theistic religious system that simply cannot entertain the notjion of atheism as we define it in the West.

[Speaking in Hindu terms...]...the goal of Divinity (if I understood your statement) is to be Divine. 'Sat'. The goal of created beings in a universe (loka) of specific qualities (and in this system, very imaginative, there are many many different sorts of worlds: some much more material than ours, some much more 'spiritual' than ours)(but in all created worlds, except Krishna-Loka, there is death in one form or another, and death implies rebirth, and rebirth is always problematic simply because it is not existence at the core of the spiritual universe...) The goal of created beings is to find a methodology to 'serve God' and establish relatedness, and to live from a platform of relatedness, which is to say personalism. It has never been a stark isolation from humankind or a shearing away...from one's own (necessarily divine) core.

Is there a second reason for rejecting universal morality? Or does Berdyaev only disagree with Kant in practise, but not in theory? I'm asking this because, if that's his only reason, he sounds like an absolutist who simply can't find the absolute.

I believe you would be right in calling Jewish monotheism and Christianity (of his Russian Orthodox variety) 'absolutist'. But it is a question of how it functions. It seems to me his view is intuitively registered, but I don't know the context from which that quote came. I am interested in Berdyaev because he is referred to often in Norman O. Brown's 'Life Against Death: The Psychoanalytical Meaning of History', which I have been reading (for his impact on Sixties movements and for ammunition against 'America as Death-Machine'). ;-)

[PS: I just have to say this. Bob writes that "books are not the answer to the ongoing human dilemma. And Christ and Christianity (his teachings) are also dead and done for so far as them being of any value in bringing the light of love, truth, and understanding into our cold, callous, dark and decaying human world. So something greater and more perfect is needed and is on its way. After all Christ clearly admitted he had shortcomings and lacked perfection". Whenever I read Bob's dark declarations the idea arises in my grey matter that, in fact, this Age is possibly the best and getting better age for human beings. Was it Ryan who posted that video of the professor who traced the rising welfare of humankind over the last 200 years or so? Things are really not that bad...]

Alexis Jacobi wrote:And your fanaticism allows you to do...well...whatever you want.

And the problem with this is ..... what exactly?

At root, one can remain a slave to thought, to convention, to dictionaries, to socially-entrenched "contexts", to other people's views, to historical tradition, etc - making small gains and scoring little wins therein - or one can become free of all that and tap into an amazing reality which is beyond all conventions and contexts.

Nature doesn't care about our precious categories and contexts, or about our finely-graded mental divisions, or our traditions. She whips these things up spontaneously and dissolves them again, according to whim. She is terrifyingly, gloriously alive! One can either block this reality out and continue to build castles in the air, or one can tune into it and really start to live.

-

David, man can successfully transcend his human thoughts of culture and society, of ethics, of morals while he remains in his body, but he cannot transcend his human thoughts of nature while he remains in his body; both ways of thinking are dual in nature. To think "I am hungry" is not a statement of absoluteness, for it is not a permanent state. Neither is this thought non-dual, as the very act of eating is an acknowledgment of belief in a projection of form "out there."

It is my discovery that one cannot claim any absolute, non-dual awareness as long as they remain attached to a single feeling/sense thought of their body. This is what Jesus, the Son of Man, the Son of His Father, meant when he said the awakened man was to be in the world, but not of the world. Jesus' anguish in the Garden of Gethsemane is a testament to his acknowledgment of his remaining attachment to his belief in dualism. And, who did he cry out to on the cross as he suffered his crucifixion of his belief in the reality of matter? Not to the non-dual Father, the [absolute] light of the [relative] world, but to the Lord God of relativity himself. He knew the absolute light cannot forsake, only the darkness that seems to oppose the light, can forsake.

The Buddha was no different than Jesus; when he discovered the truth of his non-dual Nibbana under the Bodhi tree, which I believe was the same discovery of Jesus' non-dual Father in the wilderness, did he enter it right there and then? No, he remained in his body to teach of the way to attain to the final release into Nibbana, where neither the intellect or sense awareness is present. The way is revealed here in this Pali scripture:

It was through understanding, that the Blessed One discovered the Dhamma, [teachings of the law of the Spirit of life]!
It was through compassion, that he taught it to the multitude of beings.
It was through understanding, that he felt disillusion with the rebirth round.
It was through compassion, that he bore it, while learning to liberate others.
It was through understanding, that he fully understood others' suffering,
It was through compassion, that he undertook to counteract this misery.
It was through understanding, that he himself crossed over to Nibbāna!
It was through compassion, that he brought other beings across also...
It was through compassion, that he practised & taught no-cruelty to others.
It was through understanding, that he himself was fearless of all others.
It was through compassion, that he became this world's only real helper.
It was through understanding, that he became his own absolute helper.
It was through compassion, that he was humble and gentle as a Bodhisatta.
It was through understanding, that he gained majestic dignity as a Buddha.
It was through compassion, that he helped all beings as a safeguarding father.
It was through understanding, that he remained detached from all beings.
It was through understanding, that his mind was detached from all states.
For just as the Blessed One's compassion was without sentimental fondness
so was his supreme understanding free from the concepts of "I" and "mine"...
Vism. Comm: Pm. 192-93

Did not Jesus demonstrate both wisdom and compassion until his last breath, not forsaking the Father, but being truthful to his awareness that he was not yet completely free of his interpretations of the Father as the Lord God?

Bottom line as this traveler of thought sees it: To deny the duality of feeling the suffering of the body is to deny the truth that the body remains. You say the point of enlightenment is to be free of delusion; is it not deluded to claim non-dual awareness while the duality of sense-attachment remains?